bottom of the South Island -a journey of 2,000 kilometres -you will see a lot of different kinds of countryside. In the north it is warm enough to grow oranges, and there are dozens of little islands and beautiful beaches. South of the city of Auckland you travel through the green hills near the Waikato River to the centre of the North Island. Here there is a group of three high volcanoes, Ruapehu,Ngauruhoe, and Tongariro. Sometimes fire and steam come out of these mountains; this happened in 1996, and again in 2006. The North Island’s main rivers, the Waikato,
Wanganui, Rangitikei, and Rangitaiki, all begin near the centre of the island; water from the Waikato, which is 425 kilometres long, makes electricity for New Zealand. In the South Island the mountains called